In this article, we describe an approach to autonomous system construction that not only supports self-awareness but also formal verification. This is based on modular construction where the key autonomous decision making is captured within a symbolically described “agent.” So, this article leads us from traditional systems architectures, via agent-based computing, to explainability, reconfigurability, and verifiability, and on to applications in robotics, autonomous vehicles, and machine ethics. Fundamentally, we consider self-awareness from an agent-based perspective. Agents are an important abstraction capturing autonomy, and we are particularly concerned with intentional, or rational, agents that expose the “intentions” of the autonomous system. Beyond being a useful abstract concept, agents also provide a practical engineering approach for building the core software in autonomous systems such as robots and vehicles. In a modular autonomous system architecture, agents of this form capture important decision making elements. Furthermore, this ability to transparently capture such decision making processes, and especially being able to expose their intentions, within an agent allows us to apply strong (formal) agent verification techniques to these systems.

中文翻译：

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可验证的基于自我意识代理的自治系统

在本文中，我们描述了一种不仅支持自我意识而且支持形式验证的自治系统构建方法。这是基于模块化结构，其中关键的自主决策是在象征性描述的“代理”中捕获的。因此，本文将我们从传统的系统架构，通过基于代理的计算，引导到可解释性、可重构性和可验证性，再到机器人技术、自动驾驶汽车和机器伦理方面的应用。从根本上说，我们从基于代理的角度考虑自我意识。代理是捕获自主性的重要抽象，我们特别关注暴露自主系统“意图”的有意或理性代理。除了是一个有用的抽象概念，代理还提供了一种实用的工程方法，用于在机器人和车辆等自主系统中构建核心软件。在模块化自治系统架构中，这种形式的代理捕获重要的决策元素。此外，这种透明地捕获此类决策过程的能力，特别是能够在代理中公开他们的意图，使我们能够将强大的（正式的）代理验证技术应用于这些系统。